Chile Forum

patagoniax wrote:

seawolf180 wrote:I drove from California to Chile in 88'-90'. Best trip of my life.

In 1977 I borrowed a motorbike in California and headed for Tierra del Fuego. That was how I got to Chile in the first place. The motorbike went back to its owner via ship from Punta Arenas. The aduana was good enough to sign off my Carnet de Passage so I could get my deposit back from the auto club even before the bike reached the US. It took 6 months in part because there was not much shipping up from Punta Arenas. Punta Arenas was a fine city in those days, but it has gone to hell in the past 20 years.

I was not smart enough to know that Colombia was dangerous, but I knew I could never cross the Darien on a bike. I flew from Panamá to Medellín to wait the ten days for the arrival of my bike. The police used to lock down parts of the city in those days. You could not get across an intersection without your ID. I made the mistake of going out one night with no ID during a lockdown. Almost got disappeared that night.

BTW if you're going to take a 4-wheel vehicle around the Darien on a commercial ship, use a container. Otherwise, as Seawolf says, it's likely to be pillaged. At the port in Guayaquil, almost everything gets pillaged that isn't locked up in a container. In fact, I'll get on my soapbox and submit that Ecuador is probably the next Colombia wherein crimes of violence are concerned. Even the EC government concedes that Guayaquil is not so rosy a place: "Guayaquil has a serious crime problem with violent crimes, like assault with weapons and also rape and murder are not uncommon..."

Riding a bike from North America to Chile is not so much of a challenge anymore. No Velociraptors in the roadside bushes anymore and everything is paved. You just get on the San Diego Freeway and take the Santiago off-ramp and bingo, you're there.

Gregg/Seawolf- I'm going to be in Rancagua on business in a few weeks so I should look you up in Pichilemu. Let us drink some tinto and tell some lies.